


Out of the Heavens Rained Down

by mokuyoubi



Category: Hannibal (TV), La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
Genre: Alternate Ending, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Prompt Fill, Purgatory, spheres of heaven, the circles of hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 15:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6711046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mokuyoubi/pseuds/mokuyoubi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: So lets say they both die after the events of TWoTL and that turns into Dante/Virgil Hannigram AU :)</p><p>Will is Dante, Molly is Beatrice, and Hannibal is a very twisted version of Virgil, I guess. If you squint. Wherein Will starts out in Earthly Paradise and is led astray by Hannibal's influence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Heavens Rained Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is only sort of based on The Divine Comedy. There's only so much I can do to get it to fit in with how Dante conceived of heaven and hell with Hannibal.

Will wakes, disoriented, to warm light spilling through the branches of a tree, beneath which he lies on his back. In the gentle wind, the leaves shift and flutter, and a strange fruit hangs heavy there. He blinks a few times, trying to remember where he was before, or what he was doing, but no matter how he strains, the memories won’t surface.

Water runs nearby. Will can hear the melodic burble of a stream, and beyond that, distant chimes that ring out sweet and clear. When he tries to sit up, a hand on his chest stops him. Molly looms over him, hair tumbling golden over her shoulders. The sunlight glints off it, almost too bright for Will to look at her directly. For a moment, it’s as if there’s a halo suspended over her head.

“Molly?” he asks, trying again to sit up. “How did you get here? Where are we?”

“Slowly,” she says. 

Molly helps him up to a sitting position and now Will sees a dock with a small row boat, and on the other side of the river, a group of people gathered as though anticipating some spectacle. They’re dressed strangely, like a sampling of fashion throughout the ages.

Will smiles uneasily. “What’s going on?” he asks. He rubs at his cheek, anticipating the feel of hot blood and lancing pain, but it is whole and uninjured under his touch. Yet there is some echo of pain there, and in his shoulder.

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” Molly tells him. There is a gentle, effusive happiness about her; she is radiant with it. Will has always found her to be beautiful, but in this moment he is certain he’s never seen anything so lovely in his entire life. She stands and offers her hands to him to pull him to his feet.

They walk together, hand in hand, by the shore of the river. As they draw nearer, Will sees that it is in fact two streams, running closely side by side. “I’ve been waiting for you,” Molly says.

Will glances around them, over his shoulder. Though the day is bright, sunlight glittering on the water, he feels as though he’s walking in shadow. “I don’t understand how we got here,” he murmurs. “There’s something I’m supposed to be doing.”

Molly stops and comes to stand before him. When she meets his gaze, her eyes are as blue as the sky and as boundless. “You’re supposed to be here,” she says. “Right here. With me.”

That rings hollowly between them. Will feels it somewhere in his chest, like a chord struck discordantly. “No. I was somewhere else.”

“Somewhere you shouldn’t have been,” Molly says, with an edge of sternness to her voice. “But you’re here now, that’s what matters.” 

With a firm tug on their joined hands, she leads him to the dock and sits down, legs curled up beneath herself. A gesture beckons Will to join her, and he hesitates. The water is high, and for some reason, he is hesitant to put his feet in it.

A wrinkle appears in Molly’s brow. “What’s wrong?”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t want to get in there,” he says.

“Will.” Molly’s tone is scolding. “Sit down, and tell me: why did you fall in love with me?”

Will sits, crossing his legs to keep them from going into the stream. There are a million things he could say to Molly in this moment. Pretty, flowery things to make her smile so sweetly. They aren’t lies, but neither are they the truth, and something about this place makes Will want to be honest with her, in a way he’s never been before.

“Being around you helps me to be the kind of man I want to be.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

Swallowing hard, Will goes on to say, “There were things in my life, before I met you. Influences that made it difficult for me to differentiate between what I knew was right and what _felt_ right. You are...easier to be around. Being with you--loving you--it simplified things.”

Molly grants him another dazzling smile at that. “I’m glad you told me. Understanding and honesty are the only way forward.” She rubs her hand on his back and gives him a gentle nudge. “Go on. You’ll feel so much lighter, after.”

Will shakes his head. The sunlight catches on the water; it reminds him of something distant, like a dream teasing at the edge of his consciousness. Waves in the moonlight rushing up to meet him. His whole body jerks in anticipation of the impact, but of course it doesn’t come. A cold sweat springs up on the back of his neck and down his spine.

“That isn’t for me,” he protests.

“Will,” Molly chastises, “where else would you go?”

As if in answer to her question, a cloud drifts across the sun, briefly plunging them in shade. A faint, distant rumble, like thunder, sounds through the peaceful day. Will looks in the direction from which it came, where the hill slopes downward sharply, and he can see nothing else beyond.

“What’s down there?” he asks. There’s another flash of memory. The sound of crashing waves and bright, throbbing pain in his cheek, spreading hot and cold through his shoulder and down his arm.

Molly tugs insistently on his shirtsleeve. “Nothing for you.”

But Will stands. He can’t say what it is that compels him to make the descent. It’s steep going, cutting back and forth in a zig-zag. He slips a couple of times on the treacherous path. Dirt and gravel scuttle down the hillside, and he grabs a fistful of grass to keep upright. Molly stands above him on the hilltop and calls out his name, but there is something inside Will, urging him onward.

The path curves around a bend in the hillside, and when he comes around, there is a giant bonfire completely blocking the way. On the other side stands Hannibal, countenance mostly obscured by the flickering flames. Just like that, Will remembers it all--the Dragon, blood black on his skin, the cliffside, and the feel of Hannibal’s body, solid and warm, pressed all against him as they fell.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Molly calls out to him.

Hannibal’s eyes never leave Will’s face, even as he speaks to her. “I am not subject to the same spheres of influence as you and your kind.”

“Are we dead?” Will asks. The words are sticky in his throat.

“Isn’t that what you wanted, Will?” Hannibal purrs.

The answer to that question is more elusive than Will realised, until hearing Hannibal voice it. He shakes his head dumbly. “I--I don’t…”

Hannibal reaches out a hand, right through the flames. They lick at his skin, but he remains unharmed by them. “You won’t find the answers for any of your questions here.”

Molly leans over the side of the hill, hair dangling down like a golden staircase. “And you won’t find anything but pain and loss if you follow him down,” she promises. “Here you can be at peace, Will. You may have stumbled along the way, but your journey was made in good faith.”

Though he wavers, in the end, Will never had a choice. He realises, as he places his hand in Hannibal’s, this place isn’t for him.

*

The fire burns over a great swath of land. Will passes through it led by Hannibal, and all around him he hears the agonised voices of the penitent, begging forgiveness for their lustful sins. Yet Will’s skin, like Hannibal’s is untouched by the flames. He doesn’t even register the heat of them. 

When they pass out of the flames, the path cuts down a mountainside. Men and women climb on their hands and knees, tic marks carved into their foreheads. As they make their way down, Will sees how they toil. Running ceaselessly, bound by their hands and feet to the ground, curled up on the side of the path begging for a drop of water. 

Will watches them with no small measure of distaste, careful to step out of their reach as they pass. Noting this, Hannibal grants him with a pleased curling of his lips. “It is unlike you to ignore the suffering of others, Will.”

There’s nothing Will can say in protest; it’s the absolute truth. Whether he seeks it out or not, he is constantly prey to every dark, lonely, painful experience of those who surround him.

“These souls will struggle for months and years and decades for the chance to reach paradise.” Hannibal stops them just above a steep stair that descends into a dark cloud that blocks out the rest of the mountainside from view. He sweeps a hand that encompasses all they have seen so far, and all that rests below. “Their sincere penitence as they climb ever upward will relieve them of the burden of their sins.”

“And you,” Hannibal turns to Will. Where Molly’s eyes reflected all the light surrounding them, Hannibal’s sucks it all in. “You left behind that which they strive for, without so much as a second thought.”

“I didn’t belong there,” Will says. “I felt it from the very moment I arrived--like something essential was missing.”

Hannibal grins and leads Will onward, downward, through the dark cloud, where souls wander aimlessly in the dark. “Reach out for them--tell me what you feel.” 

Trusting Hannibal to bring them through this darkness, Will does as he’s told. It’s different from how it had been in life. Now, his own consciousness unfurls, coming up against those lost souls surrounding him.

Just as Hannibal described, he feels their honest, dedicated conviction to the task set before them. A welling of contrition they’ve embraced as joyfully as they indulged in the earthly pleasures that brought them here. It’s a foreign feeling for Will, and it takes him some time to understand why, exactly.

Will has spent years fighting the desires and impulses in his mind. He’s ignored the voices of the murderers lurking there, urging him to give in. He sought out the best qualities he could find in another human being in Molly and allowed himself to get lost in her.

But that is not the same as penitence.

“Yes,” Hannibal says, as if he can read Will’s thoughts. They pass out of the cloud and into a wide stretch of the path full of stumbling men and women, eyes sewn shut with barbed wire, falling over themselves. Others walk stooped over beneath the weight of the stones they carry upon their back.

“You aren’t like them. You can see it now.”

Will swallows hard against the lump in his throat. He can’t bring himself to answer. Instead, he nods his head once, shakily.

“Yes,” Hannibal repeats. He steps forward and cups Will’s cheek in his hand. Under the sweep of his thumb, blood smears hot over Will’s skin and the pain licks through his face and mouth.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but Will knows the truth. Try as he might, going through the motions, that is not penance. He’s done what he _thinks_ he should do, following the example of others, rather than what he knows within himself to be the right thing. That is where the difference lies.

“It’s not guilt over the things you’ve done,” Hannibal tells him, voice soft as his caress.

Will’s eyes flutter shut, as good as an admission. Still, he speaks the words. “It’s feigned--over my lack of guilt.” 

“You could never belong there, because you could never surrender your wrathful desires. You don’t even _want_ to,” Hannibal hisses.

Heat grips tight in Will’s gut, like lust. “No,” he agrees.

When he opens his eyes, Hannibal is smiling again, wider than ever. Will can feel his pleasure as warm and comforting as the sunlight. Behind Hannibal is a great, gaping chasm of a gate. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

“That is one way of looking at it,” Hannibal allows. “I prefer to think of it as accepting that quality which defines as above all others. Being open and honest with who we are, at our core.”

“And what is it that defines me?” Will is almost afraid to know, but as Hannibal said, the answers aren’t to be found elsewhere. If he wants to know himself, wholly, the truth lies beyond these gates. The only way out is through.

*

The sights Will sees here are familiar to him. His passing understanding of the rings of hell leave him anxious and wondering where it is Hannibal will lead him. Past the green meadows of limbo, the violent whirlwind of lovers, the icy fall of rain over the gluttons, and the avaristic hauling their great burdens.

All the while, the aches and pains of the earthly world return to him. Now the blood runs freely from his face and his shoulder. The further they walk, the more difficult it becomes. Will limps along half-supported by Hannibal’s arm around his waist. There is a deep, angry throbbing in his skull and down his back, and a stabbing in his cheek, like being wounded anew.

When the reach the banks of Styx, Hannibal disengages from him.

“Here?” Will looks out over the writhing, warring figures in the swamp-like water, struggling with one another.

“If you were to look within yourself, you would know it to be true.” Hannibal’s hand is on his back, urging him on. Unlike when Molly tried to do the same with him above, Will doesn’t resist this time. Because Hannibal is right--even the promise of heaven was not enough for him to give up those things that define him. If he isn’t willing to surrender those feelings to _heaven_ , there’s no use in denying them any longer.

The moment he steps into the water, he is set upon by familiar faces--Randall Tier charges at him from one side, and Francis Dolarhyde from the other. They are fearsome and relentless in their attacks and all else fades away. 

Adrenaline spikes in Will’s veins, washing away the pain. He roars into battle with them, relishing every swing of his fist, every blow landing. He barely registers the feel of his own flesh ripping under Tier’s claws and the Dragon’s blade. 

For a moment, it seems as though they have the upper hand, and then Hannibal is there alongside him, even as Tobais Budge joins the fray. Hannibal is fierce and beautiful, it’s _so beautiful_.

From below the murk of the river, Hobbs rises up, grey and sickly. He lurches for Will with that taunting, empty smile, and Will feels the butt of the gun suddenly in his hand. Without having to think, he lifts it, and with a snarl of mingled rage and triumphant joy, he pulls the trigger. Again and again. 

After that, it’s almost easy, snapping Tier’s neck, Budge fallen at Hannibal’s feet. Their eyes meet, both panting with the effort and Will is suffused with elation when they turn as one to face Dolarhyde together.

 _This_ is what he wants. The simplicity and honesty of it. The feel of blood on his skin and bones breaking under his hands. And Hannibal with him, splattered in blood and viscera, teeth flashing in violent pleasure. Will reaches for him, but before their hands can meet, everything falls dark around them.

Will strains against the sudden pressure on his body, holding him under the surface of the swamp. He surfaces slowly, struggling all the while, choking on the taste of his own blood. His eyes shoot open, and Hannibal looms above him. He looks exhausted, and upon seeing Will awake, he sags in relief.

“I had feared--but no,” Hannibal murmurs, nonsensical. 

Will lies atop a comfortable bed, and from the wall of windows, he recognises it as Hannibal’s safehouse. He winces at the tug in his cheek, and when he tongues the inside, he can feel the rigid line of stitches. When he sits upright, and Hannibal tries to stop him. 

“You shouldn’t move,” Hannibal protests, but Will is tugging at him, prodding in search of his wounds. 

The buttondown shirt Hannibal is wearing is left hung open, and there’s a bandage over the place he was shot. Will touches it gently in concern. “You’re hurt worse than I am,” Will says.

Hannibal’s hand covers his wrist. “As long as I am careful to avoid infection, I will be find. You, on the other hand...you collapsed. Almost took us both over the edge of the cliff.”

Will stares at him wonderingly. Was it possible that it had been nothing more than a dream? 

“Will?” Hannibal places the back of his hand to Will’s forehead, and then cups his unwounded cheek, fingers tangling in Will’s hair. He looks uncertain and almost fearful. “What happens now?”

There is a question in his words. How will it play out between them this time? Has Will’s taste for righteous violence been satisfied with Dolarhyde? Does he intend to return Hannibal to the hospital, or does he still feel the need to spill Hannibal’s blood, as well?

“You have an escape plan.” It’s a statement rather than question. “You always have an escape plan.”

Hannibal watches him with narrowed eyes. Having an escape plan and using it are two very different things. At any point in time over the past three years he could have freed himself from incarceration and did not. He could have avoided the hospital in the first place, after all. As it was then, his decision now remains dependent upon Will.

“I’m the same man I was when you ended things before,” Hannibal says.

Will shakes his head. That’s not entirely true, and they both know it. But more importantly, “I’m not.”

Hannibal perks up, like he’s scented his prey, but wariness lingers about him. “Oh?”

“You were right. I don’t just tolerate; I delight.” Will locks eyes with Hannibal, laying it all bare between them. “And I’m done pretending otherwise.”

There’s a war happening behind Hannibal’s eyes, disbelief and naked hope that’s almost suffocating. Unthinking, Will steps closer, until their mouths are only a breath apart. “I don’t want to miss you anymore, Hannibal.”

Hannibal hand flutters along his cheek before dropping between them to lace their fingers together. Will can still see the hesitancy in him--he can’t blame Hannibal for wondering if it’s a trap. If he suspects another betrayal lying in wait. Will can’t wait to prove himself.

In the end he says, “We must be quick, Jack will arrive soon.”

Will tightens his grip and smiles as broadly as he can, with the stitches in his cheek. “Lead the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> If I'd gone further into detail, I think Will would have potentially been on the first sphere of heaven (the moon), but belongs in the 5th circle of hell. Hannibal belongs in the 9th circle, the second level I believe (traitors of society) hell yes.


End file.
